Home Remedy for Mosquito Bites

By Fuzzybeast-1 · June 21, 2006

I know that this is a somewhat odd experience and to tell the truth I'm not sure exactly why I decided to do this to myself... I guess wonky methods of self-medication runs in my family (my brother was known to pick his poison ivy rashes open and pour salt in them, or cut off warts with his pocket knife when he was young).

The weather was perfect in my area last night and slept with my window open. I didn't bother putting the screen up in my window and needless to say I woke up covered in mosquito bites today. This is bad enough for the average person but I do not react well to bug bites so I was covered in huge blotchy red lumps on both of my legs. I spent all day alternating between scratching them violently to ease the itching and trying not to touch them for fear of ripping them open. By tonight I had decided that I simply could not stand it anymore.

Pain has always been a relief for me so I decided to try piercing my lumps to ease the itching. For whatever reason, digging my nail hard into bug bites has always temporarily relieved the itch and I thought maybe a hypodermic needle would produce the same result. I waited for my family to go to bed to avoid having to explain myself if someone came in and then I broke out the hypodermic needles.

I got out my box of 1.5" 25ga hypodermic needles, a bunch of alcohol pads, and my medical lube. I squeezed a blob of lube onto a paper towel and cleaned up my leg with the alcohol wipe. The alcohol on the bug bites stung a little and actually did quite a bit to relieve the itch. I'm going to keep that in mind for next time. I unwrapped the needles one at a time and started at the bottom of my right leg. I ran the needle through the medical lube, pinched the skin up a little, and pierced through the surface of my skin. I wanted the needle to pass through the bug bite so I didn't pierce nearly as deep as I typically would when I'm play piercing. As usual, my heart started to pound, and I felt myself break a slight sweat as the first needle broke the skin.

I find shallow play piercings slightly more painful than deeper ones because I think there are more nerves in the outer layer of the skin. I worked from the bottom of my leg upwards, zig-zagging back and forth, trying to place the needles in a way that allowed me to continue my bug bite piercings without jabbing myself with the needles that were already stuck through my leg. Some needles hurt slightly worse than others and some I could barely feel but the pain of play piercing is really not extreme.

The actual piercing bit felt rather nice because it distracted me from the itching as the needle passed through. A moment or two after the piercing was done the itching came back in full force. As I worked my way through the bites I had to stop and scratch the area around the piercings I had already done to try and relieve the itching, which was more intense than ever!

After a few minutes, and eighteen needles, I had impaled all of the red lumps on my leg. I must admit that the piercings looked pretty silly because they were randomly placed over my entire leg instead of in a straight line or a pattern like people would typically do play piercings. I took a few out of focus pictures with my camera (trying not to show that I hadn't shaved my legs today) and then set to work removing the needles.

I removed the needles in reverse order, beginning at the top of my leg, and working down. This was partially because it was easier to remove them without getting poked and partially because in my experience the lower part of my leg tends to bleed more than up by my knee and I wanted to be able to take care of the big blood drips right away. Pulling the needles out soothed the itching much like putting them in had and the warm bubbles of blood that formed on the entrance and exit points felt nice too. As I worked through the needles I wiped up the blood that began to run down my leg.

Once all of the needles were out of my leg and safely disposed of in my sharps container I took an alcohol wipe and cleaned the blood off my leg. The alcohol in my fresh wounds stung but it was a welcome break from all the itching! I've never been a big bleeder so I was able to clean myself up with ease.

As I sit here writing this it's been about ten minutes since I removed the needles. My bug bites are even more red and swollen than they were prior to the piercing. They don't really itch anymore, but neither do the bites on my left leg (which I didn't pierce). So I guess my home remedy didn't really work but it certainly was a fun little experiment.

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submitted by: Fuzzybeast-1on: 21 June 2006in
Ritual

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